


A Crown of Lilac Fingertips

by wickersnap



Series: painting with your fingers [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Non-Canon Relationship, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but it's all fun and happy, otherwise canon timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickersnap/pseuds/wickersnap
Summary: When they’d shaken hands on the train and Harry had pulled back with a bright, grass green imprint on his hand, he had gasped, excited, and asked Ron what it was. At thirteen years old green becomes lilac, and at fourteen lilac becomes red. At seventeen it's both, and they wouldn't have it any other way.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
Series: painting with your fingers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748005
Comments: 34
Kudos: 435





	A Crown of Lilac Fingertips

**Author's Note:**

> I need to stop starting ideas in google keep two minutes after I wake up because now I get no work done  
> I love the colours idea, I couldn't help myself :)  
> Enjoy

They don’t touch. Not in front of others, anyway. Friendly pats on the back, hugs, small gestures wherever there were clothes between them, yes, but not skin-to-skin. Harry has known somehow, instinctively since that very first time, that this was something to keep private. 

When they’d shaken hands on the train and Harry had pulled back with a bright, grass green imprint on his hand, he had gasped, excited, and asked Ron what it was. Ron had grinned and told him about soul magic, about the people to whom one was tied both spiritually and bodily. Because Ron was the last son of a mother who’d wanted a daughter, he’d heard more than he cared to know about soul magic. It came up whenever Ginny and Mum would talk about ‘girl stuff’, and Bill, too, had lots of stories to share with her. Ron remembers every moment sitting at the edge of every conversation just to be near his ever-busy family, so when he says, “Sorry, I don’t know much about what the colours mean,” it’s a lie. A small, harmless one, but a lie nonetheless. He tells Harry that green is the colour of friendship, which is true, and the conversation gradually moves on.

In second year they take on Tom Riddle and the basilisk, and Ron scrabbles behind the rockfall with a gnawing, black hole of worry for over an hour. Harry comes out alive at the end of it, toting his terrified baby sister, and the places Ron touches him still flourish with that beautiful green.

In third year Ron throws himself between Harry and Sirius Black on a broken, mangled leg. He lies unconscious in the hospital wing while Harry and Hermione go off to save time as they know it, and still when they come back Harry is painting colours across his skin with his fingers.

“I’m not sure,” Ron says, when Harry asks why their green has turned into lilac. “Could be one of those strong relationship things.”

Lilac is the colour of adoration and affection. Ron doesn’t say this out loud, to himself or anyone, for years.

Third year is the year Seamus starts talking loudly about girls in the dorm. Neither Harry nor Ron have much to add to this conversation, but that doesn’t mean Ron doesn’t notice when Seamus starts slipping in bits about boys, too.

“Yeah,” Harry replies one night, “Wood’s right fit. Has to be, but it doesn’t make him any less attractive.”

“Got a crush on Wood, have you Harry?” Dean grins. Ron holds his breath, but Harry only snorts.

“I think it’s one of the criteria for being on the Gryffindor team. Good at flying? Check. Good team player? Check. Crush on Oliver Wood? Check.”

Seamus and Neville giggle messily into their pillows. Ron smirks at them and then groans with realisation.

“Oh god, you’re telling me Fred and George...”

“Yeah.”

“Well that’s... You got anything on them?”

“No,” Harry laughs. “It’s not like you’d be able to use it—half the school’s got a crush on him. And even if you and Ginny say no, it’s still a majority vote among your brothers.”

“Oh Merlin,” Ron groans again, “why did you have to tell me this?”

“Because it’s funny,” Harry grins, and the other three laugh again. 

Harry doesn’t touch Ron for months, after that, and even when he does that night at the Quidditch World Cup it’s too dark amongst the trees to see anything. But then he survives a Hungarian horntail at the bottom of a horrible, voyeuristic spectators’ stadium, and Ron thinks _that’s enough._ He goes to Harry immediately, dragging Hermione and her bitten-down nails quickly behind him. Harry accepts him so easily, afterwards, that it renews Ron’s hopes tenfold that their pretty lilac never faded to bitter grey.

When they get back to the dorm Harry puts his little dragon figurine on his nightstand and turns around to catch Ron by the arm.

“May I?” he asks, because they don’t touch, not really.

“Yeah,” Ron says, and pretends his heart doesn’t leap to his throat at the thought. 

Harry slowly takes both of Ron’s hands between his. Wherever his fingers press follows a lacework of almost Gryffindor red. Harry doesn’t gasp this time, only smiles softly down at it and lets out a small breath.

“I’m sorry,” Ron blurts. “I know—I know you didn’t want an apology, mate, but you deserve one. I was a right git for doing that and you know it, so at least let me try to make it up to you.”

Harry smiles again, eyes flicking up to Ron’s before returning to their hands. He runs his finger over them in patterns Ron doesn’t know. “How’ve you been?” he asks. 

Ron twists his mouth. “Bit shit, honestly. Spent most of my time thinking about what you might be up to, how to hex Malfoy for you, or what sort of ways someone could trick the cup into accepting another name.”

“So you were thinking about me?” Harry asks, small grin spreading across his face. Spots of colour are rising to his cheeks, and Ron grins back.

“Well it was really weird, wasn’t it? Usually I’m with you an’ Hermione all the time, and then suddenly we weren’t.”

“Didn’t fancy it myself much, either,” Harry murmurs.

“Which is why I wanted to say sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry that I was being stupid and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I’ve been a pretty awful friend so far this year.”

“It’s fine,” Harry tells him, still smiling down at their hands even though his fingers have stilled. He’s just holding the ends of Ron’s fingers now, though their hands are mostly bright red. Some of it’s fading already, but it doesn’t make it any less heart-stopping to see.

“I’m still sorry,” Ron says, gripping Harry’s fingers right back.

“It’s fine,” Harry repeats. “I suppose you’re not gonna tell me what this one is, are you?”

Ron stares down at their joined hands too, and mumbles, “Not if it’s going to mess everything up.”

In less than a second Harry has pushed up onto his toes and pressed his lips against Ron’s, soft in his uncertainty and firm in his determination. His fingers are tight enough to nearly crush him, and all Ron can do is try not to fall backwards as his mind is sent reeling into the aether.

Harry is about to pull back, about to apologise or run away or who-knows-what, and Ron can’t have that. He chases him with his mouth, pushes back, finally, and presses his own kiss to Harry’s lips. He feels Harry smile beneath him and smiles too, and then he’s pulling them together by their hands and letting go to take hold of Harry’s waist. 

Harry makes a small noise that lands like an arrow in Ron’s chest. He presses their bodies together when Harry’s hands climb their way up to his face, he strokes Harry’s back when Harry strokes along his face. He kisses him soundly, and it’s wet and clunky and terribly unskilled but it’s the best Ron’s ever felt, the best he’s dreamed and the best he thinks he’ll ever have. Harry’s fingers twist in his hair and tug. Ron presses even farther forward until most of Harry’s weight is in his arms and he’s leaning precariously back.

It’s a good thing when they hear their dorm mates on the stairs outside, pattering up and shouting to each other. Ron tips them easily onto Harry’s bed because they can’t—he’s not ready, he’s not ready for them to see the streaks of red splashed brightly for all to see, and he thinks Harry feels the same. 

He grapples for his wand and manages to close both his and Harry’s bed curtains before the door opens. They scramble over the duvet to hide themselves, grinning at each other and trying very hard not to laugh out loud. Harry’s eyes glitter in the light between the curtain edges, and he’s biting his bottom lip in that way that’s been driving Ron around the bend for a year. He waves his wand a third time, throwing up a good silencing charm around the hangings, and leans forward into Harry. 

Harry grabs hold of his jumper and pulls him down so they’re lying over the pillows. He yanks Ron into him and fits their lips back together, opening his mouth this time and doing something with his teeth that makes Ron want to melt. Ron drops his wand in the sheets and slides his fingers under Harry’s shirt, finding the soft skin he’s only ever watched from afar.

They can hear the others moving about, laughing and joking to each other in what passes as their best attempt at quiet. Ron is grateful that they’re unbothered by his and Harry’s supposed early night (he wonders why they would care in the first place; early is healthier than late, after all). 

He kisses Harry for long, long minutes. Both of them are needy, contact starved by self-imposed restraint. Harry doesn’t protest losing his shirt, only groans and slides Ron’s jumper over his head. There are inelegant splotches of red all over the both of them, now, and it feels like art.

They don’t go to the Yule Ball together, and even then it’s a little bit of a disaster. Hermione turns up with Krum and Ron is shocked, genuinely, but smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it. She’s a little upset that he hadn’t thought she could ‘manage it’, whatever that means, and then Padma gives up on him and stalks off with some Beauxbatons boy. His one consolation is that Harry is doing a poor job of looking like he’s enjoying himself with Parvati, so when she takes pity on him and takes off, they’re free to sit and chat shit at the back of the room. They can’t dance together because they, well, _can’t dance,_ but also because if they held hands they’d give themselves away in an instant. Instead they sit in very companionable conversation and make up dozens of insults to use on Malfoy next time he pisses them off.

When Harry pulls Ron out of the lake, the red handprints on his face and neck are only just fading. Madam Pomfrey glances over the splotches of colour on his wrists and smiles, but doesn’t say a word.

It’s somehow harder to hide in Grimmauld Place. Despite the size of the house, they’re all practically living on top of each other. It’s a dreary, creepy place, but its privacy is better than at home. Harry pushes him up against a wall the first night and snogs him to within an inch of his life. When he’s not busy being angry he’s sitting at the end of Ron’s bed with his nose in a book, stroking his hand up and down the inside of Ron’s calf. When their letters and badges arrive and his mum sends them off to pack their things, Harry locks their door and drops to his knees in front of Ron with only a harshly bitten bottom lip and an evil-looking grin. They go down to breakfast every morning with handprints hidden under their shirts and little marks bitten into their collars.

“What’s that?” Fred asks when they apparate into their room one afternoon.

“Bruise, probably,” Ron says, shoving down the leg of his jeans. “I walked into a cabinet yesterday.”

“We can always trust you to be the stupid one, can’t we?” Fred says, and George rolls his eyes. A little piece of parchment appears on Harry’s pillow an hour after they leave, reading, _Congrats -G x_

“Nosy bugger,” Ron mutters, but he smiles when Harry blushes and folds the parchment into one of his books.

The words Umbridge carves into Harry’s skin are angry and red for days. Ron runs his thumb over them when Harry tells him it helps, though it just makes them look ten times worse. Harry breathes quietly through it, though they lose the excuse when Hermione presents them with the murtlap essence. Ron’s selfishness almost begrudges her for it, but Harry looks genuinely soothed for the first time in weeks.

Ron’s asleep when Harry dreams the attempt on his dad’s life. He wakes up at the first sign of thrashing but still isn’t coherent enough to act like he hasn’t been sleeping in Harry’s bed by the time Neville pulls back the curtain. Neville smiles weakly and helps him wake Harry, then legs it to go find McGonagall when Harry tells them what’s happened. None of them mention the smudges of red around Harry’s wrist, by his neck, across his cheek, or practically dripping from Ron’s palms, and he’s endlessly grateful. They hold hands under the kitchen table in Grimmauld Place waiting, hoping for some good news. It comes, eventually, in the form of his mother, and the whole family sets about an energetic celebration.

For Christmas Harry gives him a broom compass and a really enjoyable evening. Ron gives him a huge box of Bertie Bott’s and a chain threaded with the ring he’d found in his pocket after being in the lake. It’s engraved outside and in with some of the mermaids’ song from the egg, and Harry looks somewhat glassy-eyed when he looks back up at him. Ron rarely sees him without it, after.

By the end of the year there are thin white scars swirling around Ron’s arms and chest. Harry traces them softly and looks like he’s going to cry the whole time. Hermione looks alarmed when she spots the bright red tail of one peeking out from his sleeve, but her eyebrows rise steadily as she watches the colour sink away into his skin.

Harry comes home at the end of their fifth summer. They play two-a-side quidditch and snog behind trees in the apple orchard. Ginny catches them once and shrieks with laughter and doesn’t tell their mum.

It’s mere months later when nothing seems to matter anymore, nothing could possibly matter, because Harry is kneeling at the foot of the Astronomy Tower next to the body of Albus Dumbledore. Ron manages to force himself forward and sink down by his side, pulling him over to lean on his shoulder and cradling his head. Nothing matters now, not the red and lilac traces Ron leaves on Harry’s cheeks, not the years of joyful school life they’d wandered blindly through. Not the lies, nor the sneaking around.

Because Voldemort’s back, and he’s only getting stronger.

They stagger up to Bill and Neville in the hospital wing. Lupin breaks a table, Fleur has a stand off with his mum. Ron sits quietly with Harry and holds his hand, wiping away the tears that fight their way through the grief.

Their sixth summer is possibly their worst yet. Ron spends weeks biting his nails and glaring at the ghoul that now looks like him. Fred and George get him working in the shop for a while, but it does little to really help. They’re all on the edge of their seats until Harry opens the door to his muggles’ house in Surrey and Ron can’t keep himself from crashing through and throwing himself at him. His lips are bright red and there are purplish handprints on his face when Ron steps back and lets Hermione hug him, and Moody growls that he needs to keep his hands to himself. It’s embarrassing, being known after so long sneaking around, but none of them look particularly surprised.

Harry loses Hedwig and George loses an ear. They all lose Mad-Eye.

Ron makes sure Harry enjoys his seventeenth birthday, despite the circumstances, and his brother’s wedding goes ahead as planned. His mum is stressed and overjoyed in equal parts and insists on micromanaging the whole lot. Even Hermione is giving her sideways looks by the time the guests are arriving, but the ceremony goes off beautifully and without a hitch. Ron dances with Harry at the reception, just two small faces amongst the flood of people that take to the floor. Even disguised as cousins they don’t get a second glance from anyone, each too absorbed in their own partners to care. 

Two years later, he’s opening the door to his modest London flat.

“I’m back!” he calls.

“We’re in here!” shout Harry and Hermione from the sitting room. Ron grins and shucks his shoes, tipping them over in his haste to hang up his coat.

“George had me on the floor all day,” he says, wandering through and dumping the plastic takeaway bag on the table. “I’m knackered. You lot had anything good this week?”

“Just the usual,” Harry and Ginny chime, first to dive into the food as always. Maybe it’s all the training they do.

“Had to sort out another centaur relations skirmish,” Hermione sighs. “People are so impatient with each other these days.”

Ron nods sagely, hands her her chicken shish and sits himself beside Harry on the sofa. Harry smiles smugly and curls into his side. “You know, Hermione, give it a few years and I reckon you’ll be running the whole country.”

“Ron,” she laughs, but she’s got that look in her eye that tells him she’s already scheming.

“How’s Neville doing?” Harry asks.

“Really well, by all accounts,” Ginny says around a mouthful of lamb. “I heard he was even threatened with promotion the other day.”

“That’s brilliant!” Hermione says. “Kingsley’s been talking about finding a new head for the department…”

Ron waves his fork at her. “Don’t jinx it, ’Mione!”

“How’s George today?” Harry asks him. “Still limping?”

“No, he’s mostly fixed. Just a few burnt fingers and some singed hair.”

“Why’d he have you on the floor, then?”

“Mmm, kept whining about finishing the forest-in-a-box things.”

“Does he have a name for them yet?” Ginny asks eagerly. “Because I can always suggest a few.”

Harry and Ron wince. “I think he’s got it covered, Gin.”

She pouts. “You just have no imagination.”

Ron snorts and glances to Hermione, who is trying not to laugh and failing terribly. Harry wiggles his hand through the space between Ron’s back and the sofa and pokes Ginny in the side.

When the girls leave for the night and give them back their flat, Ron stands in the kitchen doorway and watches Harry dancing between the counters to muggle songs on the wireless. He dries the last of the cutlery and spins too quickly on his socked feet, catching himself a moment before he falls. He catches sight of Ron and a slow grin sneaks across his face as he sways his way over and tugs at his arms. Ron uncrosses them obligingly and smiles as Harry pulls him into the middle of the room. It’s an off-kilter happiness, what with everything still shifted slightly out of place, but it’s true, and it’s fuelled by all the love they have to give. The ring on the chain around Harry’s neck glints the same gold as the one on his finger, and Ron spins him under his arm more times than either of them can count.

“It’s your day off tomorrow, right?” he asks.

“I’ve got the whole weekend,” Harry says, slowing and stepping closer as his song winds down.

“Oh, that’s good then,” Ron says, and makes a concerted effort to guide them towards their bedroom. Harry laughs and helps him there, squawking appropriately when Ron picks him up and throws him over his shoulder.

“What was that Ginny said about me going soft?” he says.

Harry kicks his legs uselessly and laughs. “I don’t know, but I can think of some things we can try to get you back in shape.”

“Then what are we doing wasting time?” 

“We wouldn’t be if you put me down, you arse!”

Ron dumps Harry on the bed and crashes down next to him, laughing breathlessly. “I lied, you’re heavy.”

“It’s muscle,” Harry says, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind Ron’s ear. “I love you.”

Ron smiles at him. They still leave purple and red marks all over each other’s skin. Sometimes he’ll wake up when Harry’s in the kitchen cooking breakfast and find little shapes drawn all over his body. Sometimes he’ll lie awake at night and write their names into Harry’s skin just because he can. Because they’re alive, and that means something.

“Yeah,” he says, and doesn’t hide his sappy grin. “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr!](https://silverxsakura.tumblr.com/)


End file.
